Comparative Job Rumors March 28>
posted by American and Comparative Jobs at 2/15/2008 06:54:00 AM
American and Comparative Jobs
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Friday, February 15, 2008
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551 Comments:
Who among Stanford's juniors are up for tenure this year? Tomz? Diaz? Magloni?
Doesn't Tomz have a tenured offer from Yale? I'd expect him to have no problem whatsoever getting tenure at Stanford.
Tomz also has (had?) an offer from Rochester
Tomz has or will soon have a tenured offer from almost all of the top 7 or so departments in the country.
The only puzzle is why it took so long for Tomz to get these offers.
Stanford is pretty cushy.
Tomz also has (had?) an offer from Rochester
Has. And did a follow-up visit.
Given Stanford's problem of not having many mid-career people in the Department, I imagine they will come through with whatever Tomz needs to stay. At least that's what the visiting prospective students who had been through Stanford told me this week.
He has an offer from Michigan too
also berkeley, princeton are expected. oh, yeah, and duke.
I can only imagine the salary Tomz will get - at Stanford or elsewhere.
1 million, you imagine.
150k would be my guess.
so it's the starting salary of for an assistant prof. in a top-50 b-school or law school.
Yes. The point being? I am neither a lawyer nor an economist.
If you love what you are doing (which I assume is polisci), don't be obsessed with salary. You could do much better salary-wise by doing something else. Let's talk about job rumors, not possible salaries.
Easy on the patronizing.
In the interests of stimulating some non-salary related conversation, let me proffer this general question to those of you in the know.
Its no secret that the market has been rough lately for people studying Western Europe and Latin America, at least in part due to the historical overrepresentation of these areas in departments. The flip side of that historical pattern, however, is that there is a disproportionately large number of WE and LA scholars who will be retiring in the next 5-10 years, simply because many of those people started their careers in the 1960s and early to mid 1970s.
My question is whether departments are looking to actively cut down the number of lines devoted to those areas or whether the approach is more to simply dedicate new lines to underrepresented areas like the Middle East or South Asia. In practice, I imagine it will be some combination of the above. But is there strong sentiment along the lines of "God, why do we have so many people studying Europe? When xxxx retires we should look for something else?"
Perhaps its difficult to generalize. I'm just trying to get a sense of how realignment might work in terms of the distribution of people across these areas in the future. Any thoughts on this would be helpful for us ABDs and perhaps an interesting subject of conversation in and of itself.
What's wrong with discussing salaries? They're part of the job and extremely relevant to job rumors, because they affect where a person ends up.
Do others think 150K is realistic? I heard Grzymala-Busse got 120K from Michigan and I think she had quite a few competing offers too. Did she sell herself short or is 150 kind of too optimistic?
150k for an Associate is by no means the norm, not even in a top 5 dept. That's why Tomz's case is unusual. (Not saying he isn't worth the money, just saying don't expect most Associates in top 10 depts to command that kind of money).
11:42 AM: one hopes that today's political climate generally encourages a greater interest in international politics generally.
The reality these days is that faculty lines are not exactly abundant, however.
My personal take would be that departments need to be strategic about these decisions. Everyone would like to hire a ME specialist these days, but there aren't that many good ones. And in many departments that person wouldn't really have anybody to talk to. In many departments that are heavy on American behavior or institutions, an EU specialist with similar (comparative) interests makes more sense (and is also easier to hire).
I know of several early associates making in the 130s, but those are very very rare figures to see.
If you get tenure at Yale, most probably you will be promoted to full professorship directly from assistant.
I suspect that Tomz will be earning significantly more than 150K next year.
That being said, I dislike discussions of specific salaries. The more interesting dynamic involves growing salary segmentation in the political science market. Are we looking a future with even more pronounced inequalities than the past.
If you get tenure at Yale, most probably you will be promoted to full professorship directly from assistant.
In political science at least, Yale does not have tenured associates. all tenured faculty are fulls.
9:11 is right. As at Harvard, there is an intermediate step of untenured associate. The norm is not to jump from asst. to full.
Same at Columbia.
Are there particular benefits/drawbacks to these two systems?
The benefit is that no tenured people have to call themselves associates.
The drawback is that associates have to write (untenured) on their CVs.
Aside from that, no benefit or drawback. It's just a silly naming convention.
Correction: At Columbia, associate professors like Murrilo and Ting all have tenure. There could be untenured associates there too.
Re: "It's just a silly naming convention."
Beyond just "silly," it seems to promote more confusion than what it is worth. Has there been movements to "rationalize" this issue?
Murillo was an untenured Associate at Columbia for a while. Now she's tenured.
Yale is moving in the right direction. Huber is now an "tenured" associate.
Tomz will make *far* more than $150k when all is said and done...safe bet to add another $100k
I wouldn't be shocked by $250K. The very top people in the discipline make $200-$300K.
Eleven journal articles (top notch), one solo book and one joint authored book can garner 250K?
The record is impressive but not extraordinary. It must be his winning personality.
Can we please quit talking about Tomz's salary? Aside from the fact it's rude in general, I find it especially obnoxious to be oohing-and-aahing about how much money he'll make when there are legions of adjuncts on one-year deals making about 1/4 the figures being suggested for him. Good for him...it's a free country...the market rulz...I've got nothing against the guy...blah blah blah, but give it a rest already!
(And, no, it's not terribly informative, because very few of you will ever be half the political scientist that he is).
LowSupplyofHighQuality + HighDemandforHighQuality=HighPrice
RE 3:07 That's the point isn't it? That adjuncts are getting peanuts while someone is getting soooo much for what on paper appears to be only "very high" productivity (note that the articles were co-authored too).
250k for a well published Associate? Really? 150k sounds about right if there is a bidding war etc. But surely not 250k!!
as i said before, please avoid discussing the salaries of specific scholars or their prospective salaries. most of us have no real idea what anyone else's salary will be and if you are 'in the know', i think it is highly inappropriate to discuss it on a blog.
further, if you are on the market and you need to know what salaries are like at a specific school or at a specific type of school, many states have searchable databases that can easily be found with a bit of research. or, ask your advisors or those that went on the market before you.
The conversation about salary is indeed irrelevant and uninformed, and the slights on Tomz's productivity are highly suggestive of sour grapes. It's clearly the record of a top scholar, and all you can say is that he co-authors? Wow, what a diss. Co-authoring - that makes it less impressive. Right.
Right
So is there still anybody who wonder why people have become unwilling to share useful info on these blogs?
One conjecture: some people don't want the "working-class" political scientists raised by "hyenas" to know their salary info in order to prevent unnecessary "sour grapes" and "red eyes."
Actually there are recently-moved associates who are less well published than Tomz, who have done less "sexy" work, and were the subject of bidding wars from fewer and less prestigious, less wealthy schools, who very publicly ended up in the $150k+ range. There were even newspaper articles on some of them.
So I do not find it at all hard to believe that Tomz will wind up in the upper $100's or up to $200. $250 would be a stretch for a newly tenured scholar. But he will definitely pass associate and go straight to full.
well i will see you all at midwest, but you wont know who i am!!! :) i wish everyone a good conference.
Apologies for putting this in the wrong place, but I need quick suggestions.
I'm a discussant at Midwest and one of the papers is heavily plagiarized (about 30-40 sentences directly copied from other sources without quotes and in some cases without citation). I planned to call the authors out on it (chances are attendees will be sparse). But a few people have recommended I do this privately. However, I'm unsure how to discuss a paper that has basically been stolen. Any thoughts on what's appropriate?
Re: 2:55. I would simply not discuss the paper (as if you never received it) and then talk to the person privately.
Re 2:55. I don't really agree with the first suggestion, any more than I would about letting a student off the hook for plagiarism. If it were me I'd notify the program and section chairs and forward to them both the paper in question and the works it plagiarized.
We don't have a lot to hold us together beyond intellectual honesty and in my opinion it is worth holding to that standard.
I would speak to the author before the panel started and offer them the choice of either withdrawing from the panel and saving face, or presenting the paper and having it called out as a forgery.
Beyond that, I would notify their adviser/department chair, and possible the people whose work was plagiarized.
To go back to 3/30 11:42 a.m. on Western Europe and Latin America, I was told (nearly a decade ago) by my undergrad advisor that there will probably always be demand for a Europeanist or two at every (decent-sized) university for several reasons:
1) more than just poli. sci. kids want to learn about the EU (international business majors, too)
2) every university needs somebody to teach the semi-bogus class during the big "summer in Paris / summer in London / summer in Madrid" program, because universities make a bundle off those.
I can't speak to the demand for Latin Americanists, except to note that the one at my school is ancient and we seem content to wait until he actually retires to search for a replacement. We have looked for an ME specialist in the last few years, found the pool to be incredibly shallow, and do not plan to search again (that I know of).
Actually, most Southeast Asian specialists are also fairly old (due to picking up interest in the topic during the Vietnam War and its immediate aftermath). Might it be that ME lines will replace SE Asia lines?
i would not out them publicly. talk to section chair.
Regarding the plagiarism concern, another reason not to out the authors publicly is that it sounds, from your message, that it is in fact a co-authored paper. Although both authors obviously hold responsibility for the content, conference papers are often slapped together quickly and one co-author may not be aware what the other did. So, in this situation, I would err in their favor by contacting them first and soliciting an explanation. If it feels genuine, I might let them present with the understanding that you will not discuss their paper. If their position is evasive or fishy in any way, I would ask them to withdraw from the panel and then consider contacting the section chair.
South Asianists will also be a hotter commodity. there aren't very many of them, especially at the senior level, and my sense is that demand is growing significantly (along with China and ME). Not an easy research environment, and for a long time off the global and/or US radar, which might explain the low numbers.
because you are talking about someone's career on the line, you do not (from a legal standpoint) want to do it publicly.
If consequences of plagiarism are not linked to careers, how could it be deterred?
You don't owe the authors a private chance to explain and make excuses, and in fact, it could be dangerous to you - they may become very hostile and try to undermine your credibility and go on the attack. Report them to their department chairs and Midweat authorities, and if indeed only one author is responsible, they can explain that to someone in authority, not you. Your job is to pass along this kind of unethical behavior, not to decide on the punishment.
Furthermore, nothing like a Midwest paper merely suspected of plagiarism is going to destroy any careers here. If the perpetrators are graduate students, this could be just another good lesson to be learned through graduate school.
Doesn't the APSA and Midwest have an ethics committee? If so they should be advised.
As someone who has had work stolen/plagiarized and had to deal with university lawyers, I recommend that you not say anything publicly about it.
That is not helpful advice about what to do, only advice on what not to do.
I think talking to a section chair is a good idea. If they are grad students, I would also talk off the record to their advisers. Plagiarism is a messy business, and extremely hard to differentiate "intent" from "sloppiness." (The whole Doris Kearns Goodwin mess is proof of that.)
I also think the seriousness depends on exactly what is being stolen. If the core theoretical argument or key empirical results are being stolen without attribution, that is pretty close to unforgivable. If it is sentences out of a lit review that just describe what others have done, that strikes me as potentially forgivable. Without the papers to look at, it is hard to judge.
My main advice--tread carefully. If you noticed the lifting, perhaps others will as well.
Again, I've gone through this and it sucks no matter what.
I still don't understand why someone would plagarize in this way. To take someone else's analysis from a small subfield? Did they really think nobody would notice?
Re: 8:10. Anyone else remember the article that appeared in ISQ a few years back, but was then yanked from the online version because it had been almost entirely plagiarized? These things happen, even in a small subfield.
Regarding demand for Latin Americanists, Europeanists, etc. I think LA will always be the 2nd most represented regional specialization (after Europe). First, far more American high school students have exposure to Spanish than any Middle Eastern or Asian language, which means that they are more likely to do study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, which means that they are more likely to demand a course on Latin American politics. As an entry way to the discipline, having pre-existing language and regional expertise makes a big difference in determining your course of study. Second, the sheer proximity of the U.S. to LA makes it an obvious area for study. In fact, given American demographic trends, more and more American students are likely to be from LA (or their parents).
Is Temple hiring in Latin America soon? Its LA guy (still listed on its faculty page) José Antonio Lucero seems also listed as a lecturer at tufts.
Dumb question from a lurking non-comparativist: What is the market like for people who study African politics?
Thanks.
Re: Market for Africanists
If your work defines you as someone who studies African politics, the market is good. If your work defines you as someone who studies, say, Tanzanian politics, the market is not-so-good.
You will only be considered a legitimate Africanist if you did field work and if you speak an African language.
You will only be considered a legitimate Africanist if you did field work and if you speak an African language.
Like, e.g., French? I'm not being flippant: field work in Rwanda using French seems reasonable to me.
French will suffice, you'll do better if you speak Swahili or some other indigenous language.
Someone posted long ago that Rani Mullen interviewed at American U for the Asia position. Does anyone know if she got an offer, or if anyone did? Thanks!
Very few Africanists I know speak an indigenous African language, although many know French. Most that do speak an indigenous language can do little more than exchange pleasantries.
French will suffice, you'll do better if you speak Swahili or some other indigenous language.
For that matter, how about English? I can imagine elite interviews in Kenya or Zimbabwe using English would be sufficiently impressive.
Re Africanists, I think departments look for serious fieldwork and theoretical rigor (as they do for all comparativists). There's no check-off list re languages, only the expectation that you have the language skills (or, for that matter, the other methodological tools) necessary to do the kind of research that you do.
It is beyond ridiculous to claim that you will only be considered a 'legitimate' Africanist if you speak an indigenous language. I can count on one hand the number of Africanists I know who speak one fluently.
Africanist political scientists, that is. Other disciplines have a different set of expectations.
I wonder how the discussant at the MPSA Meeting handled the plagiarism case.
At the very least, the paper giver or givers should not have been allowed to present "their" paper.
The chair and I discussed the plagiarism case prior to the panel. He felt that it was best for me to address properly citing sources in my comments following the presentations, but to talk in private with the the plagiarists afterwards about the copying. I agreed. I have also notified the section chair.
Thanks for all of the advice; despite the high variance, it was helpful...especially since it became clear that only one of the authors had copied.
MPSA is clearly not what it used to be. I no longer see a point in going. It's now as bad as APSA, and possibly worse.
Yes, I agree that MPSA was particularly bad this year. Many panels lacked chairs or discussants (in some cases both!). The panels I saw were very poorly attended. Some of the papers were attrocious.
Regarding MPSA, part of the problem is that if you accept everything, then you have no backups when people drop out -- this is true even if the person who drops out tells the organizers very early.
More to the point: when you accept everything, you have no standards. People are submitting proposals for papers that obviously unwritten for presentation 6 months later...during the heart of the academic calendar. By contrast, APSA requires proposal 9 months in advance, and you have the entire summer to write the paper.
If it were up to me, I would eliminate the Sunday panels (nobody attends these, and everybody hates being stuck on one), and just keep the current setup for Thurs/Sat. This would force section chairs to be somewhat more selective (though I would personally rather them be more selective by quality of proposal than coherence of potential panels).
let's take a breath and relax a bit ATA's sudden demise meant there were lots of no-shows through no one's fault - MPSA is still just fine - I found the aPlamer House staff a bit surly this year, but otherwise I found it indistinguishable fomr the alst 10 MPSAs (all I've attended)
"I found the aPlamer House staff a bit surly this year, but otherwise I found it indistinguishable fomr the alst 10 MPSAs (all I've attended)"
I agree with you, but I would have to say that the last 5-6 MPSAs have been about as high-quality as this sentence of yours (3 typos...are you one of my undergrads? :) ). I would like to see the MPSA raise the quality of its conference, and the way to do this is through a little more selectivity.
I'm an admitted grad student at Princeton and am seriously considering going there but I wasn't able to make the admit weekend events. I've been trying to get in touch with current grad students via the grad coordinator who, as I far as I can tell, is either purposefully trying to stall me from speaking with them or is just incompetent.
I'm worried that this is a sign that the grad students may not have the kindest things to say about the department. Nevertheless, I would like to have a little information about the dynamics of the department from people who aren't biased.
You all seem to be an opinionated bunch. So, if you are willing to help I'd certainly like your advice/take on things at Princeton...
I'm sure Keith appreciates your attitude
I've been trying to get in touch with current grad students
Look them up, find someone in your area, drop them a line. There are about a hundred to choose from:
http://tinyurl.com/5lg93a
I'm not at or of Princeton, but prospectives emailed me at my (top 5) school and I was happy to advise as best I could.
I think the grad coordinator at Princeton is new. Don't take it as a reflection on the department -- probably just a case of a new hire trying to deal with her first admit season.
What are your other options, besides Princeton? It doesn't make sense to give you advice without that info. If your other options are, say, GW and UNC, it's one thing. If they're Harvard and Stanford, then it's a whole different ball game.
I'm as opinionated as they come, and I promise to offer my invaluable advice if you share more info...
Princeton is a fantastic school. Comparative isn't its strongest subfield overall, but it really depends what you study.
Two other things to keep in mind:
1. When thinking about advisers, remember to consider whether that person has tenure. It is difficult to get tenure at Princeton and a lot of junior people will be moving on.
2. Know what you're getting into in terms of social life. There really isn't much to do in Princeton. If you are used to living in a big city, it will entail a real adjustment.
The grad coordinator at princeton is new (2 months on the job, and the old grad coordinator had the job for 25 years), so I'm sure if she has been less than easy to deal with, you can chalk it up to that. You shouldn't take her as a reflection on the department
We are considering hiring both a South Asianist and a Southeast Asianist. Any thoughts on who might be movable or who is a hot new candidate?
How is your dept ranked, roughly speaking? Can't offer any sensible advice without knowing that first.
What happened with Chicago and their searches?
Who are the young Southeast Asianists out there?
On Chicago: nothing will go on this year at the senior level in Comparative; junior offers in Comparative are out.
Who got the junior comparative offers from Chicago?
Stan Markus
The pickings are slim in South East Asia at the junior level but better at the tenured level.
Tom Pepinsky at Colorado is junior and is very good.
Pepinsky is also leaving Colorado for Cornell.
i'm curious about mideast and south asia, they seemed to be especially "in" this year. it's easy to predict some schools that will go on the market again next fall for these spots--for instance, those that failed to land somebody this year and will repeat. but is there preliminary intel on any new schools, that haven't already commenced a job search in these subfields, that will go hunting in the fall?
i got lucky in landing a decent job in a field that started stagnating around a decade ago (latin america). from my vantage point, in the last 2-3 years i have never seen anything like the burst of interest in ME/SA in terms of hiring practices. kinda makes me jealous even. i just wonder if it will continue...
(so i can tell my grad students to switch subfields, of course)
So Rueda didn't get an offer at Chicago?
Dan Slater at Chicago is another good SE Asianist.
South Asia-wise, it's a small pool right now. There are S Asia-related grad students coming up from Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Chicago, etc so in a couple years there will be more, but it's currently slim pickings.
does this small supply of SA-specialists coming out of grad school mean that more schools will learn their lesson--save resources, wait another year?
and does the same hold of ME/NA? some schools have been trying to fill ME lines two, three, four years in a row. obviously if a glut of new candidates stormed out, those lines would be filled. but they're not. why are the major programs not cranking these people out?
"why are the major programs not cranking these people out?"
It's a good question. I think a lot of it is because there are so few senior South Asia faculty (Wilkinson, Varshney, Kapur, Ganguly, Chibber, Kohli, Chandra, a couple others). And several of those are recently tenured. Myron Weiner is dead, while Paul Brass and the Rudolphs are emeriti. Compare to faculty numbers in Europe, Latin America, post-communist, East Asia, etc.
Plus South Asia's hard to work on - Karachi, Colombo, Dhaka etc aren't exactly Paris or Buenos Aires or Tel Aviv or even Cairo. And the governments don't much like foreign scholars showing up. Linguistically it's a lot easier than China or ME because of English, but otherwise the research hassles are pretty significant.
is this the same for Mideast? does lack of senior faculty => no decent grad students coming out? this would be the case say for schools like Harvard and Stanford. but both have done very well on job market recently according to job-wiki.
anyway, the earlier poster's initial ? was there's been this explosion of Mideast jobs now for two, three years... but many stilled unfilled. (didn't somebody here report recently that maryland gave out like four SIMULTANEOUS Mideast offers and only one stuck?) so is it cyclical--no good senior faculty, no good grad students, many good jobs go unfilled...
that means bad news for any new school on the market next year. that means GREAT news for any new grad students testing the market next year.
While we had a large number of grad. students post 9/11 who came to our (top 25) school looking to study terrorism or ME, they have all switched topics or washed out (many due to the frustration of learning Arabic). None of our grad. students in the last year or two have expressed any interest in ME. I think ME lines are likely to be high demand / low supply for several years to come.
all the more better for those intrepid few Mideast types then.
so what programs are producing good ones these days? not necessarily asking for a list of "who's hot, who's not." more curious about actual academic quality of programs and candidates rather than a popularity contest won by the job seeker with online friends trolling this blog
4/09/2008 12:34 AM
No, it ain't happening.
I just want to make a comment on the South Asia part. Yes, there were quite a few jobs available last year, and being South Asianist I was quite hopeful. I write this only so that when faculty subsequently search for South Asianist, really peel your eyes open so that you can look beyond your top 5 schools. And I say this for the following reasons.
I dont come from a great school in the US (definitely not even in the top 25), but have an excellent background in South Asia coming from a very good school there and so on. Why didnt I go to a big school to come to the US? Partly I wasnt the best student from the university I come from, and partly because instead of taking my chances spending a 100 dollars or whatever exorbitant fees it is to apply to say Harvard, I preferred sending out two applications to mediocre schools, because in the end the objective was to come to America and not necessarily Harvard. Paying for dollars in the local South Asian currency is not easy considering the exchange rate, and the measly amounts of money you have if you are from a middle class family out there - hence the tactical choice. Further, I had heard that America was a land of opportunity and so it didnt really matter which school I went to, justifying breaking up the limited amount as application fees to several schools.
In other words, I'm very sure that you can find some excellent grad students and young faculty who have got their PhDs from mediocre schools, but who might have an excellent record on things from their home country : affiliations, publications and so on.
I can say this with a lot of confidence that I know my South Asian stuff and can see through half of those ABDs who are getting jobs or calls because they come from big schools. Can't blame the ABDs because it is a job and a good one at that, but on the myopic faculty who select them, like asking questions like who is "hot" - what, is the job search now - American South Asian idol?
If you want to find a good South Asianist, see how she or he sustain their linkages with his research base or his host country. Does he publish there, does he or she have ongoing research projects there, did he actually visit the place, for how long and so on. And does he speak the languages of the places he studied. And not just the national language. If you are truly a South Asianist scholar you should be able to speak at least three languages. As a south Asianist I can pretty much vouch that most South Asianists can at least speak two - their native tongue and the national language, but can tout themselves as being very knowledgable about the place. Ask them if they know three, and you can sift the men from the boys - so to speak.
All this of course if you want a good investment on a South Asian. If you want someone just to make your department look good, and hope that he or she might turn out to also be a good investment, then ignore this.
You sound like an old, tired, area studies person. Thankfully the discipline has mostly moved on.
7:30 AM: you are way out of line with your comment on 6:38 a.m. But you knew that already -- that's why you posted it.
Buried deep within 6:38's somewhat acrimonious lament is an important point:
When you have extremely complex societies that few people in the field of political science actually know much about, the potential for bullshit is very high.
A candidate might present a seemingly compelling argument or model that is in fact almost fatally flawed, yet nobody attending a job talk would be the wiser.
One way to obviate these concerns somewhat is to conduct some due diligence concerning a candidate's knowledge of the country and what other area specialists (outside the department or even the discipline) think of their work. While the proposed three language test seems somewhat arbitrary and self-serving, the larger point still holds.
Of course, I see no reason why the "hot" candidate shouldn't also have solid knowledge of the area. To claim some kind of reciprocal relationship just seems bitter.
Regarding the Middle East field, I left undergrad in May 2001 (!) with a decent knowledge of Arabic but the firm conviction that there was no future in studying the Middle East.
After a stint in consulting, I began to look at PhD poli sci programs a few years later and found there are still very few departments that have more than one political scientist who can speak Arabic (much less Turkish, Persian, or other regional languages).
Even places with Title VI FLAS centers for Middle East seem to be dominated by historians, anthropologists, etc., not political scientists. Among the few exception seem to be Georgetown, Pennsylvania, and now Maryland with it recent hires.
I'm not convinced its the difficulty of learning Arabic (hell, I did okay with it), but simply that many top departments refuse to train political scientists as area specialists.
6:38 is right that it's important for people to have actually spent time (at least 1 academic year) doing dissertation research in the region, and to work on languages (though 3 seems highly arbitrary, especially since most of the academic literature written by Indians, Pakistanis, and Sri Lankans is actually in English!). 2 weeks of drive-by fieldwork obviously isn't very impressive.
But I actually don't know who he/she is talking about. The two South Asianists I know of who did well coming out on the market this year (one from Princeton, the other from Michigan) both happen to be from, well, India. The white folks I know coming up in the region all have at least an academic year+ of interviewing, etc. I'm sure there are tons of people I'm clueless about, but it seems like taking a nice swing at a total straw man.
Exactly. And all with an arrogance that is quite off-putting.
Maybe, just maybe, the person in question did not do as well as s/he expected simply because, well, s/he is not nearly as good as s/he thinks.
Departments seeking political scientists with area specialities have to balance area knowledge with good poli sci training as well, and it stands to reason that there will be some disagreement over what that balance should be.
As an area specialist in one of these hot areas, with significant language training and time in the field, I also want to add that knowing a language is not the equivalent of understanding a place. It's not some magic key. You can be fluent and not have a clue about the politics or society. English is my native language, but it hasn't magically given me insight into a lot of areas of American politics that I know nothing about. Time in the field, good questions, good research design are all essential, but having an arbitrary language threshold like 3 languages or a certain measure of fluency doesn't really tell you much about a candidate's scholarly potential or grasp of a region.
having tenured senior scholars advising you isn't a prerequisite for being a decent candidate. in Middle East politics, for instance, some schools in the last 5-6 years have produced very well-trained and competitive candidates despite not having a senior faculty member in the field.
one of the best junior ME scholars now, jason brownlee, came from princeton when they had nobody in the department. look at stanford's record of placement in the last couple years despite not having anyone closer to the Mideast field than david laitin. likewise harvard is producing robust people despite not having any senior or junior faculty in its roster--two young woman there did well on the market this year, and another promising guy from there who'll be applying to jobs come fall.
the notion that there is some threshold by which we gauge somebody's area studies qualifications is laughable. if we want to be fair and apply it to all countries, how do we get a sense of how good americanists are? by how well they know the details of american political development? how many times they've observed congress if they do legislative decisionmaking? by their english grammar skills? these thresholds are arbitrary and are usually set by individuals whose deep grasp of a given country/region is offset by a simmering anger that there is somebody out there who may not be as fluent in the language or have spent as many months in the region, and yet got a better job.
sorry, that's life. half of america thought the less qualified person won the last election, too.
all true perhaps, but pointing to recent placements by top-brand schools as sufficient evidence that those schools can train good scholars does little other than recreate the tendency that presumably fueled 6:38's beef. er, pork, in this case.
so to go back to the (IMHO more interesting) questions: are there rumors on new schools looking to open Middle East or South Asia lines this fall? new, meaning, not schools that will likely repeat already open searches, like umaryland, (perhaps) harvard, kansas (i think), etc.
The University of North Texas will (likely) be searching in Middle East politics in the fall.
The Department of Political Science at Tulane University invites applications for a one-year, non-tenure-track, Visiting Assistant Professorship in International Relations and/or Comparative Politics, focus on Asia preferred. Ph.D. in hand desired, but advanced ABDs will be considered. The teaching load is three courses per semester. Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, a writing sample or publication, available evidence of teaching excellence (such as syllabi and teaching evaluations), a graduate transcript and three letters of recommendation to: Comparative Politics Search, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118. Please direct email inquiries to the Associate Chair, Professor Martyn Thompson, at his personal email address: martynpt@aol.com. Consideration of applications will commence immediately and the position will remain open until filled. Tulane University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to excellence through diversity. All eligible candidates are invited to apply for position vacancies as appropriate.
goooooooood work
Sweet! The first time I've checked in on the blog in about 8 months, and the cycle has been complete -- so I didn't really miss anything. We're going to pick right back up with the ever-fascinating, supremely interesting, always resolvable CP vs. Area Studies debate.
Gosh I love our field!
You nailed it!
Area studies: tastes great, or less filling?
Less filling.
Looks like Georgetown hired Matt Carnes and Desha Girod. Didn't even know they were searching in CP this year.
I am really appalled by the careless copyediting in recent JOP issues (countless errors of citation, even author affiliation, etc.) Little wonder the slide in SSCI impact factor ranking.
Stanford's placement record is really impressive. Probably the best in the country.
I'm a new graduate student who turned down Stanford for Harvard, and am now wondering if, as they suggested, I have doomed myself.
Yes. Going to Harvard means you're screwed.
But seriously, why has Stanford been so successful the last five years? And Harvard (in my view) less successful?
Q:
But seriously, why has Stanford been so successful the last five years? And Harvard (in my view) less successful?
A:
David Laitin
Which means it tastes great.
"What goes up /
Must come down. /
Spinning wheel /
Got to go 'round. /
Talking 'bout your troubles /
Is a crying sin. /
Ride a painted pony /
Let the spinning wheel spin."
I would agree that Laitin is key to Stanford's success. They also have a lot of dynamic interesting juniors. Plus they had a few cohorts of really smart graduate students who pushed each other to improve their game.
And no, I am not affiliated with Stanford! Just impressed.
I sense that faculty at Stanford are way more easily accessible than faculty at Harvard. Plus, Stanford is considerably less divided than Harvard.
I'm a new graduate student who turned down Stanford for Harvard, and am now wondering if, as they suggested, I have doomed myself.
Ya, that was stupid. I guess you liked the name. No, I'm not affiliated with Stanford.
Of course, you could still do okay, but you will probably not be trained as well and you will be ignored even more than you would have been at Stanford.
Except for Political Theory (and even that is changing), Stanford offers better training, access, atmosphere, and placement.
Don't scare the new grad student! Now s/he is going to be all freaked out. Nice work.
Well, I still have one day to recant, although I will look like an idiot.
There are clearly people who do very well at Harvard (some of them are teaching at Stanford right now). The question is, how do I not get lost in the mix? How do I set myself up to excel on the job market in six years? Stanford seems like the safer bet, but I had my reasons (as did the several other students this year who made the same choice).
And who chooses a graduate school because of its name??
Harvard has serious political undercurrents, better to avoid. New grad students beware.
Harvard's best students place as well as Stanford's best students. They differ, however, in that almost all of Stanford's recent students seem to place very well. Harvard, which is a larger program, does not place as well below the top 2-3 students.
Compare for yourself:
http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/placement_history.html
http://www.gov.harvard.edu/pub/grad_history
It is hard to say from these websites what is and is not being reported, so one cannot make strong inferences from self-reported data. Still, back to the original post, if you got accepted to Harvard and Stanford, you have a huge head start. Don't worry so much. It will all come down to your own talent and dedication, though. There are plenty of excellent scholars who came from not so well-ranked schools and even more duds who came out of top programs (no names please!).
Ditto to 1:31AM. The top programs produce huge numbers of duds, who unfortunately spawn and populate large swathes of our profession.
If you are basing your decision on what you read on these blogs, then you are not going to succeed in grad school regardless of where you go. Ask some people you know and trust what you should do. This is not a reliable source.
Did USC interview/hire anyone for their Methods/Formal position? I am compiling a data base on unfilled openings and can't find any information.
Chelsea Brown (UNT PhD) has a job talk on April 21 at the UT-Austin, LBJ School.
Ditto to 1:31AM. The top programs produce huge numbers of duds, who unfortunately spawn and populate large swathes of our profession.
4/15/2008 5:31 AM
Wait, you think that it's the *top* programs producing all the duds that are populating our profession?
@ 7:01 AM I figure, get as much information as possible from as many different kinds of sources as possible. Synthesize. Rinse and repeat.
At any rate, it's the afternoon of April 15th. The deed is done!
"Did USC interview/hire anyone for their Methods/Formal position? I am compiling a data base on unfilled openings and can't find any information."
Always good to see that some people are more insane than I am.
That doesn't mean I don't want you to post it when you're done though.
Stanford seems like the safer bet, but I had my reasons (as did the several other students this year who made the same choice).
What were those reasons?
Isn't Stanford's junior faculty drawn mostly from Harvard?
Btw, have you also checked Harvard's record in winning APSA dissertation awards? I think it's significantly better than Stanford's. Which I interpret as evidence that Harvard's training may be superior to Stanford's. So it's possible that Harvard grads are not doing as well on the market as one would expect because of "personality" factors, rather than training or support factors.
a dud from a top program can still get a job based on the industries over-reliice on name brands. A dud from anything out of the top 10 or so never sees another grad student the rest of their careers, so yes, the top programs do drop lots of duds into the industry -
anyone who thinks that picking stanford over harvard (or vice-versa) "dooms" somebody's academic career is smoking crack. let's get real. no job committee reviewing your CV will say "you arse, you went to harvard NOT stanford (or vice-versa)? you suck, no job for you"
a word about placement. look at stanford's incoming cohort. compare it to harvard's incoming cohort in terms of size (and there is a huge difference). think about how that skews placement record given a finite number of "top" positions elsewhere. then report back here.
if it makes anyone feel any better, Schmidt and Chingos did a piece for PS last on ranking programs by placement. There are some caveats --- it looked at aggregate results for 1990-2004 so it may be a bit outdated, the article examined total placements instead of breaking down placement by fields, etc...
However Harvard came out #1 and Stanford #2. So if the original poster is screwed for going to Stanford all of us non-Harvardites are as well.
Sorry I meant to say "would have been screwed for going to Stanford" in the previous post since the OP picked Harvard.
Is there any information on the new Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University San Diego?
Re: Harvard vs. Stanford, Stanford's current success (esp. in comparative) is due to the department's strong focus on civil war / ethnic conflict. It's a hot topic, and many students work on the Middle East & Africa, which has strong job market demand.
Stanford is essentially benefiting from the Laitin-Fearon nexus: students who want to study civil war / ethnic conflict are largely self-selecting into Stanford. Believe me, Stanford students working on other topics / regions aren't doing as well.
Oh dear God, are we really debating about Harvard vs. Stanford? Does anyone really think this matters? Go write a paper or something.
Amen!
For the record, I've seen a couple of the second-tier Stanford ABDs give job talks in recent years, and they weren't that great. But with Harvard, you'll end up doing someone else's research for several years, stunting the growth of your own research agenda.
no more Harvard vs Stanford bs. who cares?
more job rumors! don't wait other people's time.
Look, Harvard has more interesting people than Stanford. If you love game theory and statistics, you'll thrive at Stanford. Otherwise, go somewhere else. I'll say this: recent Stanford placements are more fluff than stuff.
OK: Florida State versus Ohio State. NYU versus Emory. U Washington versus U Texas. Fight!
I have to disagree with 6:39. When I was at Harvard (recently), only 1 person in my cohort put in any serious hours into somebody else's research. That person indeed ultimately did not develop their own research agenda, but I think there was considerable self-selection in this.
And to tie this thread back to the beginning, Mike Tomz, and numerous others, appears to have only gained from working closely with Gary King.
Finally, all of you not interested in reading about Harvard vs. Stanford, don't read. Come back for job rumors in July-August. Exactly, what kinds of job rumors do you expect in April? Come on now...
4:57 has a point. The title of this blog is indeed, "Random reflections on Gary King, Barry Weingast, and Fluff vs Stuff at Two Crimson Universities." How'd I forget?
Here's a proposal: let's throw out any serious job talk and try to bring Murietta Valley High School into the discussion. Don't they also have a crimson color scheme? Is Tomz rumored to be going there, too?
Oh, and apologies to 4:57. (S)he is right. As a graduate of a lesser university, I should be forced to scroll through thousands of blog entries about the pros and cons of going to S or H. It's my due, after all. Mea maxima culpa... I forgot we're all here to stuff the egos of the overlords.
This Harvard/Stanford discussion is illustrative of one key point so often missed on this blog: no department is tops in everything. A place that is fantastic in comparative political economy may not be so hot when it comes to law and society scholarship for example. Even a broad and wealthy department like Harvard has strong and weak points. Many smaller (by number of FTE) departments, like Stanford, can also have dominant theoretical and/or methodological orientations. This is fine, if you fit into that camp. But not so good if you don't. Comparative politics is a big tent with many departments strong in important corners, but no undisputed across-the-board leader. We should not forget that, but we can certainly move past and forget silly pissing contests about whether Harvard's placement success is bigger or more robust than Stanford's or vice versa.
Re: complaints about "whyz iz hahhhhhhvard versis stanfords on dis blog so much time":
Nobody is ever coerced into reading this blog. This blog is not an officially recognized source of information about any aspect of contemporary political science. If this blog were to be taken down in a DDoS raid tomorrow, no journal would mention it and no conference panel would discuss it.
So you don't have to read it. If you don't like what's posted GTFO and stop clicking on that link from your bookmark list. Pick up your APSA instead.
Re: 10:17 AM. I am posting here a portion of an article from the Washington Post. If you don't like it, how shall I put this? GTFO.
It's about as relevant to comparative job rumors as the H-S debate:
In Homily, Pope Describes Hope for Healing After Clergy Scandal
By Petula Dvorak, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Michael Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, April 17, 2008; 12:10 PM
In his first Mass on American soil, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the damage done by the church's sexual abuse scandal, asked that the American spirit of hope help heal that pain and urged Catholic Americans toward a renewal of their faith.
Before a standing-room-only crowd of 46,000 at Nationals Park, the pope said that while the country is challenged by "an increasingly secular and materialistic culture," it remains a place of hope for people throughout the world.
"Dear friends, my visit to the United States is meant to be a witness to Christ, our hope. Americans have always been a people of hope: Your ancestors came to this country with the expectation of finding new freedom and opportunity, a new nation on new foundations," he said. "To be sure, this promise was not experienced by all the inhabitants of this land; one thinks of the injustices endured by the Native American peoples and by those brought here forcibly from Africa as slaves. Yet hope, hope for the future, is very much a part of the American character."
In his homily, Benedict again acknowledged the damage done by the church's sexual abuse scandal -- the third time he has raised it during his trip.
"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," he said. "Yesterday, I spoke with the bishops about this. Today, I encourage each of you to do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt."
I find it pretty sad that the people who clog up this blog with irrelevant postings about Harvard vs. Stanford are so lacking in intellectual capacity that their only response to those who point out that they shouldn't clog up this blog with irrelevant postings is "GTFO."
Oh, and 4/17/2008 10:17 AM: if you're going to write GTFO, why don't you at least spell it out for everyone to read?
10:39: Amen! And to think that they don't pick up "APSR" but all of "APSA" instead...
Stanford is teh awesome!
Now that that's settled, could we please GTFO of this group circle-jerk and talk about important things, like whether area studies is better than comparative and whether controlling for zombies should/shouldn't be considered essential for submissions to JoP?
For the second time:
What job rumors do you want to discuss in mid-April?? The job season is over...
Perhaps the job season is over for you high-falutin' types, but there are jobs open at think tanks, at several universities abroad, and at a few consulting firms, according to the APSA website and a couple of regional studies sites.
Perhaps if we were serious about keeping this about jobs only, instead of stroking Harvard/Stanford egos, there would be more job talk...
Whenever job rumors are actually discussed on this blog, they usually focus on openings at top-tier depts. I've been following this blog for a couple of years now and I've never seen any discussion of think tank jobs. So I doubt anyone who reads this blog has information about the openings you are referring to, 2:17.
So it's either Harvard-Stanford discussion (and similar "high-falutin" stuff) or silence. It's not like people are lining up to share job rumors, but our discussion is preventing them from doing it.
GTFO = Get the Falutin' Out
Harvard eclipsed by Yale,
Stanford by Princeton.
No more discussion on this, Simon said.
suggestion:
How about you Harvard/Stanford folks start your own discussion room eleswhere, and leave this one to the majority of other bloggers in this room who do not care about this silly topic
agreed to the last poster!
also, how about you gossip queens who:
1) want to name certain individuals and speculate on their salary online;
2) want to debate the relevance of area studies to the discipline writ large; and
3) want to talk about how to deal with plagiarized papers at conferences
start your own discussion room somewhere, and leave this blog entitled "Comparative JOB RUMORS" to the business of discussing job rumors.
which, by the way, most of us are still dying to know. so here's a legit question. the all massive umass-amherst search. still going on? reopening for next year? how many spots still open?
I think UMASS stopped hiring.
UPenn sent me a letter explaining that their Africa search was not over, but that it would no longer include me.
Does that count as a job rumor?
In other news, I greatly prefer Harvard over Stanford, for the simple reason that Gary King once held an elevator for me at APSA. When David Laitin does the same, I will reassess.
So, I will be on the market this fall and I would like to get a general sense of what the CP market was like this past year and what it might be like this next year. Several people I talked to had a tough time this past year. Is this the general consensus (that it was a tough market)? And will the economic slowdown make things worse for next year? I just don't want to spend another year eating King Vitamin.
Re: 7:00am
This will depend on what you do. There seems to be a strong demand for China and Middle East right now, but with few qualified applicants. There is a relatively constant demand for Europe and Latin America, but many more applicants. Cross-national, non-region specific topics are generally safer, but many departments also want a strong regional focus in addition to large-N testing.
Re: UMass-Amherst. I'm confused. So they stopped hiring for this year--meaning all positions filled for next year? Or still open positions, no accepted offers/good candidates, re-enter job market next fall?
7:55 AM is one of the best posts on this blog. pretty much sums up the state of CP right now.
Re. UMass Amherst -- they have had three offers accepted and are in the process of making a final round of offers (ie, not official yet). The expectation is that there will be a couple more positions to fill next year. Comparative politics per se is not likely to be a priority next year, although work that has a comparative dimension (eg, comparative public policy) may be.
According to the new PS, most of the visiting slots available in comparative for next year are in Middle East. Is that a reflection of unfilled TT slots from this year, or of what schools will be searching for next year?
The in demand comparativist will be able to solve the Harvard vs. Stanford question and be an area specialist in both Cambridge and Palo Alto. Otherwise no CP jobs for you.
Wondering if anyone has heard about SSRC/IDRF, either positive or negative...
If U Mass is hiring again this fall, should those of us who did not get an offer this spring apply again? To date, I haven't received a formal rejection letter.
In general, if you get rejected from a place, is it appropriate to apply again, if they are hiring the following year?
Has anyone heard (either positive or negative) re: SSRC/IDRF?
Depends on why you didn't make the cut this year. If it's because you weren't quite done with the dissertation, then apply again next year. Also, if there's a major change in your CV (you've won a prize or published in a top journal), I'd say apply again. Otherwise, it probably isn't worth it.
Positive or negative such as whether SSRC/IDRF is a good fellowship? Or whether they have been awarded? Emails awarding the fellowships went out earlier this week....
send it in again - it's only postage and if they get mad because you applied again, what can they do? not hire you? it's costless and you shouldn't assume last year's hiring committee is the same as next year's - you might be the flavor of the month next time around
First Fall Search Jobs Being Posted on APSA Website:
For the first time yesterday I saw an ad for a tenure-track position with an October 2008 deadline and a July 2008 start date....
Did many senior comparativists move this year? It seems that with senior hires many in the end do not move and instead use the offer for home bargaining.
What are some of the top post-doctoral fellowships available for studying Comparative Politics? Although numerous post-docs are discussed in the IR rumor mill, few of those seem very relevant to many topics in CP. Any information about acceptance rates and/or salaries would also be helpful. Thanks!
Has anyone heard back from the Horowitz foundation? Still waiting...
What's the deal with UPenn's Africa search? Are they doing more interviews this year or starting over in the fall? Thanks.
re. post-docs, there is Stanford's CDDRL and Brookings. I would imagine that both are extremely competitive.
I think UPenn has a senior offer out right now from its Africa search.
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